“Limerence”

Yves Tumor isn’t so much an experimental musician as he is a snake charmer or a hypnotist. He replaces the flute or the pocket watch with synths, samples, field recordings, and hot digital noise, creating a musical world that is teeming with spooky sensations. This is especially true of his song “Limerence,” which is part of PAN’s wide-ranging ambient compilation mono no aware. It first appeared on the artist’s self-released and underrated debut When Man Fails You, and it is given new life here as the focal point of a compilation that explores the fleeting nature of beauty.

On “Limerence,” Yves Tumor follows in the line of ambient artists like Laraaji, Suzanne Ciani, and Jefre-Cantu Ledesma, musicians who are able to inject an unexpected amount of emotion into inherently ambulatory music. Here, Yves Tumor presents two sides of himself: the romantic and the prankster. In its opening, the song is dictated by the fluctuations of an airy, open repetition of synth chords. But then, two minutes in, he drops in a recording of a woman in the midst of a playful argument with her lover (she’s debating whether or not they should leave bed). He punctuates the argument with the sound of a wet kiss, and then quickly mixes a warm thunderstorm into the background. It’s a subtle sequence of events, but there is an intensity in how familiar it feels. This conversation blossoms from something cute to serious as the speaker discusses the inevitability of aging and the falsehoods of beauty. Amid this all, Tumor conjures an understated string section and throws in pops of static like handfuls of confetti. As heavy as the song’s emotional weight gets, it never feels plodding: “Limerence” saunters playfully from second to second, welcoming you to close your eyes and indulge in distraction.